Hiroshima: 63 Year Later

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. It was the beginning of the end of World War II.

It was a pivotal event. Truly, the world changed in an instant.

HIROSHIMA, Japan (AFP) -- The mayor of Hiroshima on Wednesday urged the next US president to work to abolish atomic weapons as the city marked the 63rd anniversary of the world's first nuclear attack.

Some 45,000 people, including Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, gathered at a memorial to the dead within sight of the A-bomb dome, a former exhibition hall burned to a skeleton by the bomb's incinerating heat.

They stood up and offered silent prayers at 8:15 am, the exact moment in 1945 when a single US bomb instantly killed more than 140,000 people and fatally injured tens of thousands of others with radiation or horrific burns.

Delivering a speech at the memorial, Hiroshima mayor Tadatoshi Akiba noted the United States was one of only three countries which oppose a UN resolution submitted by Japan calling for the abolition of nuclear arms.

"We can only hope that the president of the United States elected this November will listen conscientiously to the majority, for whom the top priority is human survival," he said.

...A Chinese representative, a diplomat, attended the annual ceremony for the first time in a move welcomed by the city, which each year invites representatives of the world's eight declared nuclear powers to the event.

Previously India, Pakistan and Russia were the only nuclear powers that had sent representatives to the ceremony. The other declared nuclear states -- Britain, France, North Korea and the United States -- have never come.

This year a Chinese representative attended the ceremony for the first time. That was probably part of its Olympic makeover, coming-out effort.

Note that the U.S. has never sent a representative. That means that Bill Clinton blew off the event.

The Democrats and Barack Obama can't spin this as another instance of cowboy President Bush's bad relations with the world.

It does bug me that for the second year in a row, Akiba has used the ceremony as an opportunity to take swipes at the U.S., singling out America for condemnation, talking about his hopes for the "next U.S. president" to eliminate atomic weapons.

Why not target Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his threats to wipe Israel off the map? Why not chastise Iran for its defiance of the global community?

Surely, Iran poses more of a threat to peace than the U.S.

I'm not going to debate whether or not President Truman (D) made the right decision by giving the order to drop the bomb.

He did it and he ended the most horrific war in human history.

Starting at 8:15 AM on August 6, 1945, the threat of nuclear annihilation became real. It exists and always will.

63 years and counting....

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Last Saturday, the 63rd anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima was marked in Sydney, Australia.

An anti-nuclear demonstration took place, including a sign saying "No U.S./Israel Attack On Iran!"

Note the anti-U.S./ anti-Israel sentiment allegedly in the name of peace.


What about Iran's "militarism"?

Has Israel repeatedly threatened to wipe Iran off the map? Does Israel repeatedly state that Iran's destruction is at hand? No and no.

I haven't heard the U.S. threaten to decimate Iran or any other country.

So often, peace activists reveal that they aren't truly working for peace as much as they're protesting the U.S.